Title: Transitions
Characters: Sirius/Remus
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Awkward love.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters is to J.K. Rowling and associates.
Notes: For mezzopianoforte. This wasn't quite how I wanted it to happen, but I hope it suits. Probably one of my professors would like to kill me for using Bradbury as a conceit like this, but then again, it's not like he's going to read this. And no, I am not shipping John/Douglas.
*
The room was bare, save for the piles of books pushed against the walls, the trunk, and a rickety metal bed with a mattress no thicker than the quilt spread over it.
He made a face, wrinkling his nose. The air was stale, smelled faintly of a million fry-ups. There was the sweet, lingering scent of books: yellowing pages, crumbling paper, dust. Mingling with the lot was his scent, familiar and comforting, and the only reason Sirius bore that dump of a place.
Crossing the room carefully, so he wouldn't step on the books, he sat down the bed and heard the springs creak under his weight. Feeling something poking against his leg, he shifted his position and saw that it was a paperback. Merlin, he thought, the whole place is being taken over. An invasion of books.
He looked at the one in his hand disinterestedly. The cover had been ripped off from the spine. Cruel, that. There were blurbs, some pages with no print, and the title: Dandelion Wine. Ray Bradbury. Romantic, that bloke. Sirius wasn't surprised Remus liked him. There was innocence, a sense of wonder, and magic that was still magic. Not a weapon yielded against unsuspecting Muggles. Not the fuel for war.
Sirius leaned back, half of his body lying on the bed now and feeling the awkward lumps of the mattress under him. You're just tired, he told himself. Sick of this all.
He must have fallen asleep, because when he opened his eyes again the dim light from the windows have changed. He turned to his side gingerly, wincing as his back protested having been twisted in an uncomfortable position too long.
"Couldn't you have gotten yourself a better bed?"
An answer came when he didn't expect one, making him jump. "The bed came with the room, or I wouldn't have bothered. I couldn't have," Remus amended. He was sitting next to Sirius, the copy of Dandelion Wine in his hands. Sirius wondered how it was that he failed to hear Remus arrive, either through the normal way, or through Apparating. His sleep had been too deep. What if Remus had been someone else, waiting in the hallway for when he let his guard down, to attack him?
Don't lose it, thought Sirius. Not now.
Remus was still talking, book on his lap now, hand absently playing with Sirius's hair. "I'd rather eat than sleep in a comfortable bed."
Sirius raised his head to look his friend over. "I doubt you'd been doing much of either."
Remus sighed, then shook his head. "How did you get in?"
"Magic." Sirius waggled his eyebrows. "Had to fight a dragon on the way. She seemed to think you'd been hiding from her."
"The rent has been due for several months now," Remus said. "What did you do?"
"Kissed her. She was really a princess, see, cursed to spend her days down there counting money when she could have been admiring that fit bloke living three floors above her." He would have liked to pay what Remus owed the landlady, but he knew Remus would not like that. Maybe he still should have. It wasn't as if Remus had ever been angry with him for long.
"Sod off," said Remus. He sank down the bed as well, making the springs creak some more. Sirius smiled. "Mrs. Kaye always fancied you."
"And quite understandably." He reached out, tracing the sharp curve of Remus's nose with his fingertips, down to his lips, chin that remained boyishly kittenish. He felt the soft pressure of Remus's lips, a whisper-kiss against his skin. Sirius sighed, moving closer. "Still reading Muggle fiction, I noticed."
"Nothing wrong with that." Remus turned so that he was facing Sirius in the half-light. His brown eyes looked too large, showed too much white.
"I expected you to read the normal ones, you know. Biographies, or those prissy ones with rousing titles and foreign authors." He meant the Russian ones, but Remus smiled anyway. Bradbury was American. "Escapist stuff."
"You know, Sirius, Muggles call fantasy and science fiction 'escapist'."
"Depends on whose perspective."
Remus poked him under the ribs. "Words."
"Reality." Sirius giggled, poking back. They wrestled a bit, Remus on top of him. Remus smelled nice, like soap and clean clothes, dust and boy. "Come off it. You're all knees and elbows. Hipbones."
"Cheekbones." Remus ran his fingers across that particular feature of Sirius's face. "You have girly eyelashes."
Sirius has heard this before. "Do not."
"Hmm," said Remus. "I hope you brought something to drink with you. It's been a dry week."
"I have something better." Sirius summoned their coats, draped over the trunk haphazardly in his case and carefully in Remus's. "Let's go out, my shout."
*
They came back not so much drunk as saturated. It had been a nice meal. Rather fancy restaurant. Sirius chose the one because someone had been playing the Appasionata very softly on the piano, the Second Movement starting when they got in.
"Snooty," Remus had said, eyes brightening anyway. Despite Sirius's long hair and leather jacket, the spliff Remus hid in an empty box of Peppermint Toads back in his trunk, and Buzzcocks records, they were quite able, as any one else, to appreciate Beethoven and bouillabaisse.
"Fine things in life, mate," said Sirius, as they walked arm in arm back to Remus's flat. They could have Apparated there, of course, which was a safer option. But it felt good to just walk, the night air cold against bare skin, Remus a warm and welcome weight by his side. Remus had lit a cigarette, forgetting and burning it to the filter as he concentrated on getting one foot in front of the other.
"Fine things," Remus echoed, tripping on his own feet and pulling Sirius down with him. They almost fell, staggered upright by some miracle, "By magic," Remus said, and sent them both giggling like school girls.
"Such as a sunny day, warm grass under bare feet." Sirius was warming to the subject.
"Banana pudding," added Remus. "Catriona McCormack--"
"Ha!" said Sirius. "Always knew you fancied her. Poster on the walls when we were at Hogwarts."
"Old now," said Remus. "Daughter looks nice, though."
"Spanking good Chaser," said Sirius. "Eye candy." They giggled again. They reached Remus's flat without being aware of it, as if the three flights of urine-smelling stairs just happened to be there, gone in a snap of fingers. Then Remus's door. And that bare room beyond it, creaky bed and coverless books. Dandelion Wine.
"Stay." Remus pulled his arm away, searching for his keys in the pockets of his coat. Growing impatient, Sirius took his wand out and did the Alohomora spell. He looked at Remus, whose eyes were showing too much white again.
"Oh?" Sirius said, heart pounding, palms sweaty. "You sure?"
Remus nodded, and then he smiled, and it was as if someone had put the lights on. Sirius shuffled inside and shut the door.
*
They landed on the bed together, coats, shoes and all. There was a massive creak and Sirius wondered if the lot was going to collapse, but Remus was muttering something, a spell maybe, and after a while the rocking and the noise subsided.
"I think--" Sirius made a gagging sound.
"You're not." Giggling again. They were full of giggles that night. Giggle machines. "You're not going to be sick."
Sirius closed his eyes, hand seeking Remus's in the dark.
"'There went John Huff, not touching the ground at all'," said Remus. "'And here came Douglas, touching it all the time'."
"Hm, what?" Their hands met, clasp tentative, then tight.
"Tomorrow, I'm going," said Remus, at the same time Sirius said, "You should just move in with me."
Sirius sat up, regretting it a bit as his head swam and the feeling of wanting to be sick came back, stronger this time. He tried to see Remus's face, the darkness becoming a hindrance, rather than a comfort. He cursed. "Lumos." And then, "What did you say?"
"Dumbledore asked me to do something," Remus explained. He did not meet Sirius's eyes. "Work for the Order."
"Fuck that."
"It won't take long." He did not say it, but Sirius heard anyway: I hope.
Sirius lied back down the bed again, rubbing his nose against the line of Remus's neck. "Move in with me anyway."
Remus did not answer for a while, and when he did, it was just a brief kiss on the forehead. Too brief, so that when Sirius turned his face, Remus was already pulling back, looking at him, smiling.
"Tease."
Remus waved a had at the books. "You can move the lot, while I'm away."